Cachaça & Diplomacy

October 31, 2008

Cachaça & Diplomacy

Yes, it helps me rationalize the time I put into this site when I can claim that cachaça matters on the world stage.

The Ministry of External Relations of Brazil and the U.S. Department of State held the third session of the Economic Partnership Dialogue on October 29 and 30, 2008, in Brasilia, to further strengthen and expand economic and commercial cooperation between the two countries. This meeting built upon the positive results of the first two sessions, held in Brasilia on December 13, 2007, and in Washington, D.C., on March 5-6, 2008.

The interesting part: Cachaça's stateside recognition as exclusively Brazilian is not in question. The matter at hand: Does bourbon deserve be similarly recognized as exclusively American?

The U.S. side reiterated support for the recognition of cachaça as a distinct Brazilian product in the U.S. market and presented an update on recent developments on the issue. The Brazilian side reported on possible ways of addressing the more recent U.S. request related to Bourbon and Tennessee whiskey.

Posted by Phil Gomes on October 31, 2008 at 06:03 PM in News | Permalink

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About Cachaçagora

Hi. My name is Phil Gomes. By day, I work at a public relations firm as its senior vice president of digital integration. I'm a proud SF East Bay native who currently lives in Chicago.
I was introduced to cachaça by my wife, a Carioca. Her mom, in turn, is the president of the Confraria de Cachaça do Copo Furado, a group that meets monthly to talk about Brazil's indigenous spirit. I participated in one of their meetings when I vacationed in Rio in July 2008.
This started me thinking about the basic question of whether cachaça in the U.S. is today where, say, tequila was some decades ago.
So I decided to start this blog as a means to record and share the cachaça-related items I've been seeing day-to-day. I hope to be sharing recipes, impressions, and random thoughts as the U.S. continues to catch on to the potential for this particular spirit.
Oh... The name? "Cachaçagora" is a portmanteau of "Cachaça" and "agora", which is the Portuguese word for "now". In Greek, "agora" also means public square. I hope to meet the expectations of both.
Saúde!
cachacagora~~ at~~ gmail~~ dot~~ com

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Cachaçagora - Cachaça, Caipirinha, And Cocktails

Quite possibly the best English-language blog about cachaça, the national distilled spirit of Brazil.

October 31, 2008